The brief and lackluster cheers that rang through The Fairmont Copley Hotel Grand Ballroom after Mayor Thomas Menino’s win in the 2009 mayoral election was announced showed that victory was a familiar routine for Menino supporters.
Despite one of the toughest reelection battles of Menino’s 16 years in office, his triumph over City Councilor-At-Large Michael Flaherty didn’t seem to come as much of a surprise to followers, who said they never doubted he would win.
Only later when Menino was introduced and began his victory speech to the hundreds of attendees at the reception did the chants and enthusiasm take off. After an audience member yelled, ‘Four more years,’ Menino smiled and reiterated the phrase, provoking a continued chant throughout the gold-crested ballroom.
Though Menino acknowledged the historical implications of his win, he sought to clarify that simply being elected is not enough.
‘The headlines may read that today we were elected to a ‘historic’ fifth term,’ Menino said. ‘Let’s be clear. We haven’t made history with this election, but we will with what we create of it.’
He said the biggest challenge during his next four years is not succumbing to ‘complacency.’ Because of this, he said, it’s crucial his administration does not rest on past accomplishments, but instead echoed his campaign slogan: moving Boston forward.
‘So, celebrate this evening and rest up tonight because our work begins again tomorrow,’ Menino concluded before thanking Boston residents for electing him.
‘ After his speech, however, Menino refused to speak to The Daily Free Press for comment on his victory because of The Free Press’ Nov. 2 editorial endorsement of Flaherty.
Menino campaign spokesman Nick Martin declined to speak about Menino’s comment, but he reemphasized Menino’s message after the victory speech.
‘It’s what we do over the next four years that will make history,’ he said.
He said though Menino worked hard in this election, he does not think it was the mayor’s toughest, but rather cited the 1993 election, Menino’s first, where he faced seven candidates in the preliminary election.
Martin said the next step for Menino is to finalize his priorities for the next four years, which he said primarily include Boston’s education system and economy.
‘He’s done a good job maintaining his steady leadership, while bringing in fresh faces and new ideas,’ Martin said.
Jack Kilclmmos, a South Boston resident and Menino campaign member, said he thinks Menino won because he’s an ‘icon’ in Boston.
‘When you think of Boston, you think, ‘Red Sox, Patriots and Menino,” he said.
Robert Hawkins, a 22-year-old Mattapan resident who campaigned in Dorchester for Menino, said he voted for the mayor because he’s ‘visible’ and actually comes to the neighborhoods.
Marco Torres, who campaigned for Latinos in the Menino campaign, said the mayor has done a good job representing the Latino community.
‘As a Latino in Boston, I want somebody who says my community counts,’ Torres said. ‘[Menino] has stated that we count, and that means a lot.’
Meanwhile, across town at The Venezia, an Italian restaurant in Dorchester, the supporters for Flaherty and his potential deputy mayor, City Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon, accepted a difficult loss.
‘I know this hurts. This hurts for all of us,’ Yoon told about 350 supporters. ‘But we can’t stop fighting. We cannot stop fighting.’
In his own concession speech following Yoon’s, Flaherty said though he is incredibly disappointed by the results, he believes the election raised Boston’s standards for its city government.
‘Although the outcome of this election was not what any of us had hoped for, we’ve had some important conversations over the past year,’ he said. ‘We’ve also raised expectations of Bostonians throughout every single neighborhood.’
Flaherty said he called Menino after he received the election results to congratulate him.
‘I said, ‘Let’s do this again in four years,” Flaherty said in a press conference after his speech.
Flaherty spokeswoman Natasha Perez said she was hoping for a higher voter turnout-around 120,000 to 130,000, as opposed to Tuesday’s actual 111,067.
But she said the election did bring the mayor needed competition, and the ‘Floon’ campaign was ‘pretty flawless.’
‘We came closer to his machine,’ she said. ‘He’s spent more money than he’s ever spent on TV. He pulled out all the stops at the end.’
Jamaica Plain resident Francesca Fordiani, a former Yoon supporter who said she supported Flaherty after speaking with him about affordable housing, said she was unhappy with the results.
‘I’m actually really concerned that the Menino camp will feel empowered and say it’s OK with Bostonians to ignore public records law,’ she said, referring to the recent City Hall scandal concerning emails improperly deleted by top mayoral aide Michael Kineavy.
But she said in the end, the election brought Boston together on issues in a way that hasn’t happened in a very long time.
‘Lots of people who are not natural allies came together on common issues,’ she said.
Staff writer Neal J. Riley contributed reporting to this article.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
